"Nearly 30 years ago, on the piano man's 18Th wedding anniversary, a unique situation
was being developed. Three well-versed jazz musicians congregated at a ranch house
basement recording studio on Beatrice Street in Livonia Michigan to document all of the
piano man's original tunes (all at that time) by performing them without rehearsals, without
second takes, without any audio enhancements, and improvising solos based on the
feelings created in the moment."

Then, as now, Ed Pickens was the bassist. But this time around Allan Colding

replaces the late Frank Isola on drums. The program is different but similar in that

all the selections reflect the jaunty compositional qualities of their composer, Bob Szajner.

Bob (a bit of a protege who was playing professionally by age 11), disillusioned by

the music business and unable to reach the level of perfection he envisioned for himself,

pretty much dropped out of the active scene from the mid ‘60s on, interrupted only

by brief emergences and a series of small label recordings. And then a public silence

while the music played only in Bob’s head. Around 2005, he started looking

over archival material and tapes and, to quote Bob, “After a musical performance

absence of many years, the only event left for the improvisational mind is the re-discovery

of the former muse.” And so he rented a studio room and woodshedded, working on his chops.

Satisfied with his progress and instincts, he looked for a trio. Bob contacted Ed Pickens, who

also had been off the scene forover 20 years, and Allan Colding, who had only recently

returned to active performing.

More woodshedding and a gig in 2008 at the Detroit Music Hall/Jazz Cafe' and now,

almost 30 years to the day since his first recording in 1978, Bob and what he refers to as Triad IV (Triad I - 1978; Triad II - 1980; Triad III - 1981; Triad IV - 2008) offer up theseinspired sounds from Detroit’s Jazz Café. Thirty years later, many things have changed in

the world, in the USA, in Detroit, in the lives of these musicians. But as the evidence shows, Bob Szajner’s musical touch, spirit, and instincts have been a constant—identifiably so.